19

Connected Crawler Robot Design and

Motion Planning for Climbing a Step
Sho Yokota
School of Bionics, Tokyo University of Technology
Japan
1. Introduction
The application fields of autonomous mobile robots recently extend from indoor uses to
outdoor uses. Rescue systems and planetary explorations are typical examples for such
outdoor mobile robots. In such field, it is required to have both of rapid movement and
adaptive function to rough terrain, while general wheel mechanisms are not suitable for
such rough environment. To move in such environments, the robots need to be flexible to
various environment.
There are many researches concerning rough terrain mobile robots for rescue and planetary
exploration. In such field, the robots require high mobile ability on rough terrain. When we
design such kinds of robot, It become very important to choose the mechanism as a mobile
platform. Several types of mechanisms have been proposed as a mobile platform: Crawler
type, wheel type, leg type, and their combinations.
Wheel type mechanism is the simplest mechanism and can be controlled easily, but in terms
of moving on rough terrains, its performance is obviously inferior to the other two
mechanisms. If we adopt wheel type and try to get enough mobility on slight obstacles, we
have to utilize pretty large wheels.
The leg mechanism is able to adapt various kind of environment, but, its weak points are
low energy efficiency and complicated mechanism and control, that imply high cost and
product liability problems. Those might be high barrier to develop them as a consumer
product.
The crawler mechanism shows the high mobile ability on various terrains; moreover it is
simple mechanism and easy to control. Therefore a lot of rough terrain mobile robots adopt
a crawler mechanism.
However conventional single track mechanism has also mobility limitations; the limitation
is determined by attacking angle, radius of sprockets, and length of crawler. In order to
improve its mobility, it is required to adjust the attack angle against the obstacles, enlarge
the radius of its sprockets, and lengthen its crawler tracks. And the mobility on the area like
the stairs is inferior to that of the leg (S. Hirose, 2000). Therefore, a lot of researches have
been done to supplement these weak points. The main theme common to those researches is
to improve the mobility performance on rough terrain. Generally, the method which
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Source: Climbing & Walking Robots, Towards New Applications, Book edited by Houxiang Zhang,
ISBN 978-3-902613-16-5, pp.546, October 2007, Itech Education and Publishing, Vienna, Austria
Climbing & Walking Robots, Towards New Applications 404
changes the form of crawler is adopted as an approach for this main theme. In order to
realize these transformations, many researches proposed the connected crawler mechanism.
The purpose of this chapter is also to develop a connected crawler robot for rough terrain.
The connected mechanism is that; some stages with motor-driven crawler at its left and right
side are serially connected by active joints. When this mechanism is adopted, it becomes
problem that how many crawler stages should be connected.
Lee et al (C.H. Lee et al, 2003) designs the mechanism of two stages one joint type that uses
two triangular crawlers, and shows the high mobility performance by the comparison of
climb-able step height between proposed mechanism and a conventional one track type.
"Souryu-III" (T. Takayama et al, 2004) is the connected crawler robot of 3 stages 2 joints type,
and it shows high mobility by using some basic experiments such as climbing a step and
stepping over a gap. "MOIRA" (K. Osuka & H. Kitajima, 2003) is 4 stages 3 joints type
connected crawler, and it reports the maximum climb-able step height which was measured
by some experiments.
As mentioned above, the mobility performance was improved by the number of stages.
However this number was different in each research. The mobility performance was also
evaluated by using different experiment and criterion.
Although we can observe such researches, there are no researches which show the
standardized relationship between the number of stages and mobility performance. When a
connected crawler mechanism is designed, there is no design guideline which indicates how
many stages would be optimal. That is a big problem, because the number of stages is
influenced to mobility performance strongly.
Therefore this chapter derives the each actuators motion which conforms to the
environments, and tries to demonstrate the relationship between the number of stages and
mobility performance. Especially, we set the environment as one step, and derive its
relationship (Fig.1). Because the climbing step ability is important factor as one of the most
fundamental mobility index (T. Inoh et al, 2005), moreover a climbing step experiment is
adopted by many researches as an evaluation experiment for mobility performance on
rough terrain. Thus this chapter shows sub-optimal number of crawler stages for connected
crawler robot which isn't cleared, through demonstrating the relationship between the
number of stages and maximum climb-able step height. After that, it proposes the actual
connected crawler robot, and show basic experimental result.
2. Deriving the Sub-optimal Number of Crawler Stages
In order to find sub-optimal number of crawler stages, we derive the maximum climb-able
step height of n-stages crawler (n=2~10). In this derivation, there is an optimization problem
for the joint motions. Because, if the joint can't realize suitable motion for the step, it might
be impossible to exercise climbing ability which the mechanism has. Therefore, the
optimized joint motions for the step are required. We set the environment to one step (Fig.
1), and then we try to solve the motion planning of each joint and derive the maximum
climb-able step height.
Connected Crawler Robot-Design and Motion Planning for Climbing a Step 405

.
h
Fig. 1. The assumed case
The motions of climbing a step are divided into 2 phases which shown in Fig.2.
1. Lifting up crawlers phase
This motion is strongly influenced by friction forces, contact forces and impact forces
between environments and crawlers.
2. Passing over phase
In order to generate a crock wise moment at the point of edge of the step and crawlers,
the robot has to change its posture. This motion is strongly influenced by friction,
balance of centre of gravity of the robot and inertia.
Phase 1
Phase 2
Fig. 2. The phases of climbing up a step
In each phase, changing the robots posture is important. If the robot can not lift up the body
as high as possible in Phase 1, the maximum climb-able step height can not be derived.
Even if the robot can lift up the body as high as possible in Phase 1, if the robot can not
generate the clock wise moment at the point of step edge, the climbing up a step can not be
realized. Therefore, it is need to consider not only the moment in phase 2 but also both of
Phase 1 and Phase 2. The maximum climb-able step height is distinguished by changes of
postures. That is to say, the problem of driving the maximum climb-able step height is the
optimization problem of each joint motion. If the each joint can not realize suitable motion to
Climbing & Walking Robots, Towards New Applications 406
the environment, it is impossible to exercise the ability of step climbing of the robot as
maximally as possible. Thus the each joint motion is required to realize the suitable motion
to the environment. But it is almost impossible to solve this problem by using analytical
methods, because the amount of patterns of changing postures (from Phase 1 to Phase 2)
becomes fatness by increasing the number of crawler stages. Thus the motion of each joint is
required to be derived by using a certain searching method. However, the round robin-like
searching method isn't so realistic, because the amount of searching becomes fat and
calculation time becomes enormous.
Therefore, we propose the following idea as one of the approach to solve this problem. If
certain approximate function can express an optimal joint motion in a few parameters, the
required joint motion can be derived in shorter time than a round robin-like search.
Therefore we try to express each joint angle function by using approximate function and
search the parameters in this function. Thus the problem of the parameter searching can be
substituted for the problem of the trajectory searching.
Moreover the robot has to change its posture with taking into interactions with environment,
in order to climb a maximum step height.
2.1 Proposed Method
In previous section, we described each joint motion are determined by certain approximate
function, and to search parameters in this approximate function. In the following parts, we
will mention the approximate function and how to search parameters, and show the method
to derive maximum climb-able step height.
2.1.1 The Approximate Function
There are n-order approximation, a tailor progression, a Fourier series, a spline function,
and so on, as an available approximate function. The approximate function must be possible
to differentiate twice, so as to find an angular velocity and angular acceleration. It is also
required that the function is periodic, and has a few parameters, and contains boundary
conditions. Therefore, Fourier series is useful function to satisfy these conditions (Y. Yokose
et al, 2004) . Thus, Fourier series approximates a joint angle functions. And the equation (1)
is Fourier series for this approximation,
+ =
= =
j
i
i
j
i
i n
t
T
i
t
T
i
t
0 0
2 sin 2 cos ) (
(1)
Here, n means the number of joints, j refers to the number of order of Fourier series, T
means the period.
i
,
i
, T are parameters which are searched.
2.1.2 Searching for Parameters in the Fourier Series
Searching for each coefficient and period in the Fourier series corresponds to the problem
which is to derive the optimized answer in a wide area. There are many approaches to solve
such optimization problems. Many researches proposed to use GA for such a problem
(Mohammed, 1997) ~ (S. Kawaji et al, 2001). Because, GA is able to find comparatively an
excellent answer in the utility time, and fit various problems. Therefore this chapter also
Connected Crawler Robot-Design and Motion Planning for Climbing a Step 407
adopts GA to search unknown coefficients in the Fourier series. We use simple GA (S.
Kobayashi et al, 1995), and set following parameters (Table. 1).
Number of chromosomes 10
Gene Length for one coefficient[bit] 10
Crossover rate [%] 25
Mutation rate[%] 1
Table 1. Parameters of GA
We also set the equation (2) to evaluate the chromosomes.
1000
1
1 1
+
+ + =
= =
n
i
n
i i i
z x
t
h E
(2)
Here, h is the step height which the robot could climb up, t is the time for climbing up a step.
Then, it is understood that the evaluation is high when the robot could higher step in shorter
time. On the other hand, when the robot couldn't climb a step, we set h=0, t=100 as a penalty.
However, in these conditions, the evaluation of gene which couldn't climb up a step
becomes equal, and it makes difficult to execute crossover. Therefore the third clause of the
equation (1.2) exists as the valuation item. Here, x
n
, z
n
are the centre of gravity coordinates of
each stage. Thousand in the denominator is numerical value to scale it 1000 down .
2.1.3 The Method to Derive the Maximum Climb-able Step Height
In order to evaluate gene, we have to acquire appropriate position of centre of gravity in
each stage and distinguish whether the robot could climb or not. Because mobility
performance of the mobile mechanism concerns with topography characteristic closely, the
consideration of the interaction with the environment is very important. Therefore we
must consider dynamics and an interaction between robot and environment, for appropriate
acquisition of centre of gravity position and distinction of climbing. Thus we adopt
ODE(Open Dynamics Engine)(R. Smith) to calculate these values. ODE is open source
software, and is adopted by many robotic simulators to calculate dynamics. We derived
maximum climb-able step height by integrating ODE and GA. The calculation System is
shown in Fig.3.
ODE GA
d , ,T
Crossover
Mutation
Evolution
0
n(t)
: joint angles, h : step height
Evaluation
Fig. 3. Proposed simulation system
Climbing & Walking Robots, Towards New Applications 408
GA gives joint angles and step height, and ODE calculate dynamics. After that, ODE
distinguishes whether the robot could climb or not, and returns the evaluation to GA. GA
makes a gene evolve, and optimizes joint angle function. Then the robot can climb higher
step in shorter time. A robot is considered to climb a step, when all centres of gravity in each
stage are higher than the height of the step h and it is on the right of A in Fig1.
2.2 Deriving the Maximum Climb-able Step Height of n-Stages
In this part, we derive maximum step height of n-stages based on the above mentioned
method. We set the conditions and assumption as follows.
Each initial joint angle is set 0.0[rad], and the range is -2.02.0[rad]. The range of Fourier
coefficients is -2.02.0. The range of Fourier series period T is 1060[sec], and the order of
Fourier Series is 5. The initial genes are determined randomly. The specifications of the
connected crawler robots are shown in Table. 2 and Fig. 4. Other conditions are as follows.
Total length L [m] 2
Total mass M [kg] 2
Radius of the sprocket [m] 0.1
Table. 2. Parameters of the connected crawler robot
L [m]
M/2 [kg] M/2 [kg]
M/3 [kg] M/3 [kg] M/3 [kg]
M/n [kg] M/n [kg] M/n [kg] M/n [kg]
2 stages
3 stages
n-stages
Fig. 4. The dividing definition of the robot
Each stage is divided in constant total length L by corresponding to the number of
links.
The crawler velocity is constant 0.1[m/s].
The actuators have enough torque for driving joints.
Connected Crawler Robot-Design and Motion Planning for Climbing a Step 409
The range of step height h is 0.52.0[m], because the total length of connected crawler is
L=2.0[m]. By using above conditions, the simulation is done which is 4 stages and the
number of generations is 500. Then the maximum climb-able step height is derived.
2.3 Results
The results are shown in Fig.5 ~ Fig. 7.
In the Fig. 5, we can confirm that the robot could climb higher step when the number of
generations is increased, and time for climbing was shorten.
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
0 100 200 300 400 500
Number of t he Generat ions
S
t
e
p

h
e
i
g
h
t

[
m
]
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
T
i
m
e

[
s
e
c
]
Climb- able step height
Time for climbing the step
Fig. 5. Transition of the climb-able step height derived by GA (4 stages)
Fig.6 and Fig. 7 are snapshot when the robot is climbing up a step. In Fig.6, the height of
step is 0.9[m] and the number of generations is 56. In Fig.7, the height of step is 1.544[m]
(this is the maximum climb-able step height of 4 stages). From these figures, the climb-able
step height becomes higher and the motions of the joins are changed when the number of
generations is increased.
We also derive the maximum climb-able step height of 2 ~ 10 stages by using same method.
The results are shown in Fig.7. It is confirmed that the robot can climb higher step when the
number of generations is increased as well as the case of 4 stages, and maximum climb-able
step height of each link is derived.
Since the maximum climb-able step height of each stage has been shown in Fig.8, the
relationship between the number of stages and mobility performance of connected crawler
is demonstrated in Fig.9.
By this figure, it is able to be derived that the sub-optimal number of stages for connected
crawler is 5. Because it is turned out that the mobility performance is saturated more than 5
stages. Thus we can get the answer against the question that how many crawler stages
should be connected, namely that is 5 stages.
Climbing & Walking Robots, Towards New Applications 410
Fig. 6. Connected Crawler robot climb the step by using sub-optimized joint motion by GA
(4 stages, h=0.9 m, 56 generations)
Fig. 7. Connected Crawler robot climb the step by using sub-optimized joint motion by GA
(4 stages, h=1.544 m, 500 generations)
Connected Crawler Robot-Design and Motion Planning for Climbing a Step 411
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
0 100 200 300 400 500
Number of Generat ions
S
t
e
p

H
e
i
g
h
t

[
m
]
2 st ages
3 st ages
5 st ages
6 st ages
7 st ages
8 st ages
9 st ages
10 st ages
4 st ages
Fig. 8. Transition of the climb-able step height derived by GA (2 ~ 10 stages)
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Number of stages
S
t
e
p

H
e
i
g
h
t

[
m
]
Fig. 9. Relationship between the number of stages and climb-able step height
Climbing & Walking Robots, Towards New Applications 412
3. Constructing the Prototype
In the previous section, we have been able to obtain the sub-optimal number of crawler
stages, that is 5. Based on this conclusion, we have designed and developed the prototype of
connected crawler robot. It is shown in Fig. 10. The length is 0.59 m, width is 0.130 m, mass
is 1.28 kg.
0.59[m]
0.13[m]
Fig. 10. Prototype of connected crawler robot
3.1 Mechanical Structure
Our mechanism has 5 connected stages with the motor-driven crawler tracks on each side
(Fig. 11). RC-servo motors are used for driving joints between the stages. The left and right
crawlers are driven by 4 DC motors independently, while the 5 crawlers on each side are
driven by a motor simultaneously. The output of each motor is transmitted to the sprockets
of the three or two crawlers through several gears (Fig.12).
Connected Crawler Robot-Design and Motion Planning for Climbing a Step 413
RC servo for joints
Motors for crawler
Fig. 11. The driving structure (Color indicates driving relationship between motors and
crawlers)
Fig. 12. Transmission of motor outputs to the crawlers
3.2 Control Structure
The control architecture is hierarchical structure by connecting master controller and servo
unit (Fig .13, and Fig. 14).
The servo units control low level task: crawler velocity and joint angle by PID control law.
Each servo unit consists of one microcontroller (PIC16F873) and 2 DC motor drivers
(TA8440H). One microcontroller is installed to control two RC-servo units for the joint
control, where RC-servo is controlled only by PWM signal. Master controller controls high
level task: such as calculating robot trajectory. Table.3 shows the communication data
format. The command sent by master controller consists of 3 bytes. First byte indicates mode
ID and motor ID. The mode ID distinguishes 2 kinds of control modes: position control and
velocity control. The motor ID is used for selecting motor to control.
Second byte shows the data depends on control modes. The third byte is checksum.
Fig. 13. The control system
Climbing & Walking Robots, Towards New Applications 414
Ser vo uni t f or cr awl er s
Ser vo uni t f or j oi nt s
Fig. 14. The servo units
1 byte 2 byte 3 byte
Data 1 Data 2 Check Sum
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
Mode=0~2 ID=0~7
0~254
Data1 |
Data2
Table. 3. Communication data format
4. Experiments
The climbing step experiment is conducted to verify the performance of our prototype. The
height of step is 0.23 m. The master controller sends instructions to each actuator through
servo units. Li-Polimer battery (1320mAh, 11.1V) is embedded to the robot for supplying
electric power. In this experiment, PC is used as master controller. The USB cable is used for
connecting robot to PC. The result is shown in Fig. 15. As we can observe, the robot can
climb up a step. Therefore the mobility of this robot is confirmed.
5. Conclusion
This chapter showed sub-optimal number of crawler stages for connected crawler robot,
through demonstrating the relationship between the number of stages and maximum climb-
able step height. After that, it proposed the actual connected crawler robot, and indicated
basic experimental result. The conclusions of this chapter are as follows.
A joint angle function was approximated by Fourier series and parameters were
searched by GA.
Connected Crawler Robot-Design and Motion Planning for Climbing a Step 415
Due to fusion of GA and ODE, it has been possible to consider the interactions between
robot and environment.
The relationship between the number of crawler stages and mobility performance was
cleared.
Though mobility performance was raised by increasing the number of stages. However
its increasing rate was small in comparison between before 5 stages and after 6 stages.
Therefore the sub-optimal number of crawler stages is Five.
By basic experimental results, the mobility of the prototype was confirmed.
Fig. 15. Experimental results
References
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K. Osuka, H. Kitajima (2003). "Development of Mobile Inspection Robot for Rescue
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"Souryu-III" for Rescue Application "Proc. of 22nd conference of Robotics Society of
Japan CD-ROM, 3A16, 2004 (in Japanese)
Y. Yokose et al (2004). "Minimization of Dissipated Energy of a Manipulator with Coulomb
Friction using GA Increasing the Calculated Genetic Information Dynamically"
Transaction of JSCES, Paper No.20040024, 2004 (in Japanese)
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Climbing and Walking Robots: towards New Applications
Edited by Houxiang Zhang
ISBN 978-3-902613-16-5
Hard cover, 546 pages
Publisher I-Tech Education and Publishing
Published online 01, October, 2007
Published in print edition October, 2007
InTech Europe
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With the advancement of technology, new exciting approaches enable us to render mobile robotic systems
more versatile, robust and cost-efficient. Some researchers combine climbing and walking techniques with a
modular approach, a reconfigurable approach, or a swarm approach to realize novel prototypes as flexible
mobile robotic platforms featuring all necessary locomotion capabilities. The purpose of this book is to provide
an overview of the latest wide-range achievements in climbing and walking robotic technology to researchers,
scientists, and engineers throughout the world. Different aspects including control simulation, locomotion
realization, methodology, and system integration are presented from the scientific and from the technical point
of view. This book consists of two main parts, one dealing with walking robots, the second with climbing robots.
The content is also grouped by theoretical research and applicative realization. Every chapter offers a
considerable amount of interesting and useful information.
How to reference
In order to correctly reference this scholarly work, feel free to copy and paste the following:
Sho Yokota (2007). Connected Crawler Robot - Design and Motion Planning for Climbing a Step, Climbing and
Walking Robots: towards New Applications, Houxiang Zhang (Ed.), ISBN: 978-3-902613-16-5, InTech,
Available from:
http://www.intechopen.com/books/climbing_and_walking_robots_towards_new_applications/connected_crawle
r_robot_-_design_and_motion_planning_for_climbing_a_step